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our week — 26 aug

It’s been a week of ups and downs. Well, actually, just one down, but it’s a big one. I’ll start with the ups.

On the homeschool front, things are going great. I hate to say it, but we’re already a little behind. I was just a tad over zealous with our curriculum, and I need to reel it in just a bit. I’m realizing having school completely over by noon, may not be the best way to go. Little breaks throughout the day and field trips mid morning seem to keep the “I don’t want to do school” whines at bay.

This week we took a trip to the Arizona Museum of Natural History. It’s all of five minutes from our house and is chuck full of dinosaur bones and activities for the little ones. The staff is super friendly. Seriously, I can’t say enough good things about it.

We’re still kind of in a holding pattern with respect to our garden. We should be ready to plant in the next few weeks. Our sweet potatoes are continuing to grow like gangbusters and the corn is really taking off. We’re very excited.

Still no babies for Eve. I’m starting to think that perhaps she is just faking us out in order to avoid a date with Adam.

This is my favorite picture of the week. Perhaps it’s time to add another roost for our chickens.

Now for the down part of the week. We got an email from the Beth over at Fairywood. Beth is affectionately known as the goat lady at our house. We bought Cyclone and Nightingale from her about a year ago. She was fabulous, answered all our questions, and made us feel like we could totally handle goats. Well, in her email, she let us know that one of her goats had been found positive for scrapie. Scrapie is very rare and usually found only in sheep. I guess we’re just lucky.

Shortly thereafter, we were contacted by a representative of the USDA who informed us that our only viable option is to have our goats put down. I feel like the wind has been knocked out of me. In the grand scheme of life, it’s not a huge deal, but it stinks. Both of the girls were due to deliver in October. So not only are we loosing the girls, we’re loosing all their kids as well. Animals at our house aren’t pets — we have them to help us provide for ourselves, but that doesn’t mean we don’t love them and don’t become attached to them. To add to it, the feds aren’t picking them up until the middle of September. There’s a tug at my heart each time I go out to feed them. Explaining all this to Thomas and Muf hasn’t been all that fun either. I don’t know what to say other than boo.